Tag: Junipero Serra

Eid Adha, Yom Kippur, and the Pope’s visit to the United States all happening at the same time. The Pope has reminded us we have a much work to do to bring about a world where we treat our neighbor as we would be treated ourselves. He also talked about atoning for past sins, against Native Americans, against immigrants, against mother earth. (His canonization of Junipero Serra puzzles me as it is so incongruous with everything else he is saying. The only good he is doing with this decision is thrusting the limelight on those Native Americans who oppose his decision.

I spent the day of atonement – Yom Kippur – not fasting but – due to a dizzy spell — contemplating, thinking about accepting and changing.Angela Davis said she wants to change what she can not accept. I agree. But first I have to accept myself where I am, my students where they are, the world the way if is before I can change anything.

Maybe accept is the wrong word. I have to be willing to start the process of change from where I am and where we are and not from where I wish we were.

I’m not for atoning, but I am for repairing. Personal wounds and those facing a nation and a world. Reparations — for slavery for example — don’t require personal responsibility for the sin, just a realization somethings been torn and needs repair. that makes sense to me.

Without repair we face reckoning, no matter what god we do or don’t pray to.

Pope Francis referred with reverence to Dorothy Day, who – Code Pink tells us once said:

My thoughts on the sainthood of Junipero Serra and veneration of Spanish missions in California. (excerpt from my forthcoming book, Turtle Road)

“The modern analogies we use to understand the missions impact their legacy. Were they technical colleges and Christian retreats, or concentration camps and plantations, stealing the labor of indigenous nations to build an overseas empire?

California’s tribes have not been the only ones suffering from centuries of whitewashing the purpose and practice of these missions. WWII Japanese Internment camps, California military bases situated on former mission land and the state’s ubiquitous migrant-exploitative factory farms, all have systemic roots in these missions.”

Pope Francis has asked for forgiveness for the Church’s sins. Sanctifying Junipero Serra is a move in the opposite direction.